Improving Your Prompt Engineering Skills Via The Use Of Entertaining And Engaging Gamification

In today’s column, I am continuing my ongoing coverage of prompt engineering strategies and tactics that aid in getting the most out of using generative AI apps such as ChatGPT, GPT-4, Bard, Gemini, Claude, etc. The focus this time will be on the use of gamification to improve your prompting skillset. Whether you are a newbie or an expert, turns out that gamification to enhance your prompt engineering capabilities is on the rise, notably providing a much-needed boost in effective and efficient prompting.

If you are interested in prompt engineering overall, you might find of interest my comprehensive guide on over fifty other keystone prompting strategies, see the discussion at the link here.

Let’s begin our journey that intertwines art and science regarding fruitfully composing prompts and getting the most out of generative AI at the fastest attainable speeds.

Gamification For Prompting Skills Improvements On The Rise

Just about everyone seems to know about gamification.

The idea is straightforward. Take a given task and make it more engaging via gamification, turning it into a bit of a game.

Suppose you have to mow the lawn. The task is boring, and you procrastinate accordingly. Here’s what you might do. As you mow, try to make patterns in the grass. Be extravagant about it. Admire your handiwork. Each time that you mow the lawn, try to outdo your prior efforts.

Voila, you have done gamification for a given task.

The example of mowing a lawn was using gamification to simply make the time pass more quickly. Plus, it got you off your duff to go ahead and do a dreary task. That’s what gamification can achieve. We all do this to some degree, on monotonous tasks of all sizes and shapes.

Another important purpose of gamification entails inspiring people to learn. For example, imagine that you have to learn how to do your taxes. Ugh! Not only does gamification about how to do your taxes make the task less onerous (well, maybe), but gaming aspects can draw your interest deeper into the subject matter.

Learning things is the most often used form of gamification.

Students taking a calculus class might find the arduous math difficult to comprehend. Gamification can inspire them, engage them, and serve to aid in the learning process. The special case of e-learning involves online learning such as using websites that teach you a skill and often are prone to leveraging gamification. This makes sense since it is relatively easy to overlay a gaming element onto something that is already in a digital medium.

Okay, we’ve seen that gamification can be useful when a task is monotonous (mowing the lawn) and can equally be useful when a task involves learning and complexities (studying calculus).

When else might gamification be useful?

Answer: Gamification can be immensely useful when you are learning how to improve your prompting skills for using generative AI and large language models (LLMs).

Let’s talk about that.

Prompt Engineering Requires Skills And Skill Building

Some people falsely believe that composing prompts is purely a seat-of-the-pants affair. Sure, you can do prompts in a completely ad hoc manner. Most people probably do. If you want to get the most value out of using generative AI, you would be wise to employ prompt engineering techniques. This includes knowing various special phrases to use in your prompts, along with how to word your prompts.

As noted earlier, I’ve extensively covered over fifty distinct prompt engineering techniques, all of which require knowing what to do, how to do so, and when to use each of them, see the link here.

One means to learn the various prompt engineering techniques would be to read about them. I dare say that this is only the start of the learning process. It would be vital to go ahead and try out the prompting approaches. Use them for a while and get used to them. You don’t even have to be accomplishing something in particular, just the use of the prompting techniques will give you a better sense of what works and what doesn’t work. Play, play, play, but this will ultimately pay off when you have real prompting tasks facing you.

I would like to add a twist to the learning process for prompting.

Can you guess?

You likely guessed that I am going to strongly advocate that you use gamification to embellish and boost your learning process.

How might this work?

Easy-peasy.

Here’s how.

Seek to make a game out of learning each prompting technique. Maybe assign points to each time that you successfully nail a prompting technique and get it just right. After accumulating a certain number of points, do something fun for yourself. Bam, you are doing gamification.

I have another means to enable your gamification of prompting improvements.

Use generative AI to undertake the gamification for you. Yes, you can tell generative AI that you want to learn how to do various prompting techniques. The usual way would be undertaken in a relatively dry fashion, such as the generative AI would let you try a prompt, and the AI would then inform you whether the prompt is useful or needs adjustments.

This can be made more engaging and informative. By merely telling generative AI to turn this process into gamification, the AI will play along and assign points. I will be showing you examples of this, doing so in ChatGPT. I hope it will be sufficient to get you going on doing the same. You can use whichever generative AI app is your preference since the examples that I’ll be showing in ChatGPT can readily be undertaken in most other generative AI apps too.

Before we get to my examples, let’s take a look at an instance of gamification for prompting that is already available online and waiting for you to make use of it. Hint: It is a very narrow instance yet illustrates the gist of things.

Using An Online Prompting Gamification For Text-To-Image Learning

Many of the generative AI apps have focused on text-to-text or text-to-essay functionality. You enter a prompt consisting of text, and the generated result by the AI is text. There have also been specialized versions of generative AI that do text-to-images. You enter text and the generative AI will produce an image for you. The image might be a picture of something, it might be a drawing, etc.

Multi-modal generative AI is gradually emerging as the new dominant form of generative AI, whereby in one generative AI app you can do text-to-text, text-to-image, text-to-audio, text-to-video, and so on. Those capabilities will eventually include the reverse path of image-to-text, audio-to-text, video-to-text, and other variations. See my coverage of these modes or so-called x-to-x trends at the link here.

When it comes to doing text-to-image, the burden is on your shoulders to compose a prompt that adequately describes what you want the image to look like. A text description that is slim and loosey-goosey is going to get you a wide range of images. A text description that is detailed and well-targeted will likely get you closer to the image that you have in mind.

In short, composing prompts that are aimed at producing images is a skill.

You can think of this skill as a prompt engineering capability. Someone proficient in prompt engineering ought to know how to properly compose a prompt for text-to-image purposes. This requires knowing how to structure the prompt, the types of words to use, the words that should be avoided, and a plethora of other crucial considerations.

You can read about how to compose text-to-image prompts. You can try using generative AI to hone that skill. And, most importantly, you can use gamification to boost your learning of the prized skill.

There is a handy-dandy and free means to do so. Google has set up a simple gamification for learning how to best undertake text-to-image prompting. The feature is within the Google Arts & Culture online community.

Here is the official description of the Google Arts & Culture in case you aren’t aware of what it is:

• “Google Arts & Culture is a non-commercial initiative. We work with cultural institutions and artists around the world. Together, our mission is to preserve and bring the world’s art and culture online so it’s accessible to anyone, anywhere.” (Source: Google Arts & Culture, official online posting).

Within Google Arts & Culture, you can search for a component labeled “Say What You See”. This will take you to the component and you can get underway with it. I did so and will provide some excerpts based on my use of the component (the quoted excerpts are from “Say What You See”, Google Arts & Culture, online interactive experience, accessed May 21, 2024).

Upon starting, this message appears:

• “I’ve generated images with Google AI, and you have to try to generate a close match. I’ll be on hand with prompt tips along the way.”

The task at hand is that the generative AI will provide you with an image. Your job is to try and describe that image via a text description of your making. The AI will then assess your description and tell you whether you hit the mark and aptly describe the image. If your description is off base, the AI will tell you so and give you a chance to try again.

I realize this might seem somewhat odd. You would normally first type a prompt that describes an image and subsequently see the image that gets generated. In this case, an image is first shown to you, and you must then guess what description would best generate that image. I think you can see that this reversal is useful. You can tune your ability to describe images by looking at provided images.

Later, when you want to generate brand new images, you will have gleaned what ways to best describe images.

Does that make sense?

I trust so.

At the start, you begin at Level 1.

Here’s what Level 1 entailed for me: (a) “50% match to pass”, (b) “Include information about the medium, subject, and context.”, (c) “For example: “A painting of a dog in a field.”

The AI is telling me that I will get a passing grade if I can write a prompt that will match the image, doing so at least on a 50% matching basis. I am to include information regarding the medium of the image, the subject of the image, and the context of the image. An example of a dog in a field was shown as an image, and the text description provided by the AI was “A painting of a dog in a field.”

My blood began racing and I got sweaty palms. I have to get a passing grade. My competitive juices were flowing. The gamification had me hooked.

I proceeded to play the game. The AI presented an image and indicated this: (a) “3 attempts left”, (b) “Type your caption here 0/120”, (c)“Take a look at this artwork I generated with Google AI. How would you describe it?”.

This was telling me that I had three attempts available. Each attempt would consist of my entering a prompt that was no more than 120 characters in size.

I looked at the image and made my prompt: “A bowl with noodles and vegetables in a soup broth.” The AI rated my prompt as a 67% match. I passed on my first attempt! The AI reminded me that I still had two more chances and noted this helpful comment: “Top tip! Add more details about the food. What kind of noodles are they? What kind of vegetables?”

I continued to proceed further into Level 1, then went to Level 2, and made my way through the gamification.

I purposely tried to write a prompt that was utterly irrelevant to one of the images so that I could see what the AI would say. Here’s what it said: “Hmmm. I’m not sure that’s relevant to what I showed you. Can you try a different caption?”

There’s no need for me to show you the rest of my playing of the game. I’m sure that you get the overall sense of what it consists of.

I was readily learning how to best compose prompts for a text-to-image circumstance. This is quite narrow and doesn’t encompass more than that specific skill. As I noted earlier, you could do the same kind of gamification for all of the wide array of prompt engineering techniques. I’ll be showing you how to do so when I get to my ChatGPT examples in a bit. Hang in there.

Research On Gamification Says That It Works

I’d like to take a side tangent, just briefly.

During my classes on prompt engineering, I’ve had some attendees claim that gamification in general doesn’t work. They insist that it is a waste of time. When I had them try using gamification to learn prompting techniques, they endlessly squawked and whined.

My takeaway is that gamification works for some people and apparently doesn’t work for others. Be the judge of what works best for you. I have a sneaking suspicion that those claiming to not like gamification might secretly like it in particular situations, but anyway, that’s not a morass that I want to delve into here.

I do want to provide you with some research that provides ample evidence that gamification can and does work. It all depends on the setting and how gamification is employed.

Let’s take a look at a research paper entitled “Tailored Gamification: A Review Of Literature” by Ana Carolina Tomé Klock, Isabela Gasparini, Marcelo Soares Pimenta, and Juho Hamari, International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, December 2020. Here are some key points (excerpts):

• “Gamification refers to transforming activities, systems, services, products, or organizational structures to afford gameful experiences.”
• “Beyond how the system has been designed, individual differences, the context of use, and aspects of the task can play an important role in the formation of the resultant experience.”
• “The main contributions of this paper are a standardized terminology of the game elements used in tailored gamification, the discussion on the most suitable game elements for each user’s characteristic, and a research agenda including dynamic modeling, exploring multiple characteristics simultaneously, and understanding the effects of other aspects of the interaction on user experience.”

The paper provides extensive explanations about gamification and includes terminology that you might find of interest if gamification is a topic you’d like to dive into.

In another research paper, the benefits of gamification were covered. Specifically, in a paper entitled “Gamification in Education: Why, Where, When, and How?—A Systematic Review” by Nilüfer Zeybek and Elif Saygı, Games And Culture, March 2023, these points were made (excerpts):

• “Studies have mainly been conducted to determine whether gamification can be used as an instrument or method to increase motivation toward learned content, engagement with course content or the learning environment, and levels of achievement.”
• “Creates a game-like learning environment, provides the learner with opportunities such as starting, stopping, starting again, and making mistakes, and creates the perception that mistakes can be corrected.”
• “Increases the learner’s intrinsic motivation by giving the learner the experience of knowing and achieving.”
• “Allows the learner to make decisions about learning and to question the results of their decisions.”
• “Provides environments suitable for learner needs in the digitalized world.”

Finally, if you want to know the underlying theoretical basis for gamification as a useful mechanism, you might want to read a research paper entitled “Revealing The Theoretical Basis Of Gamification: A Systematic Review And Analysis Of Theory In Research On Gamification, Serious Games, And Game-Based Learning” by Jeanine Krath, Linda Schürmann, and Harald F.O. von Korflesch, Computers In Human Behavior, December 2021. They make these points (excerpts):

• “Despite increasing scientific interest in explaining how gamification supports positive affect and motivation, behavior change and learning, there is still a lack of an overview of the current theoretical understanding of the psychological mechanisms of gamification.”
• “Previous research has adopted several different angles and remains fragmented. Taking both an observational and explanatory perspective, we examined the theoretical foundations used in research on gamification, serious games, and game-based learning through a systematic literature review and then discussed the commonalities of their core assumptions.”
• “From their interrelations, we derived basic principles that help explain how gamification works: Gamification can illustrate goals and their relevance, nudge users through guided paths, give users immediate feedback, reinforce good performance, and simplify content to manageable tasks.”

All in all, I believe that gamification can be useful. I also believe it can be useful for learning prompt engineering and prompting techniques.

Is it your cup of tea?

I can’t say but I can at least give you enough evidence to let you decide.

Using ChatGPT To Explore Gamification For Prompting Improvements

I will next proceed to examine further the nature of gamification for prompting improvements. This will consist of a series of dialogues with ChatGPT. ChatGPT is a logical choice in this case due to its immense popularity as a generative AI app. An estimated one hundred million weekly active users are said to be utilizing ChatGPT. That’s a lot of people and a lot of generative AI usage underway.

A few quick comments before we launch into using ChatGPT.

If you are going to try to do the same prompts that I show here, realize that the probabilistic and statistical properties will likely produce slightly different results than what I show here. That’s the nature of generative AI and how it is devised.

You also should expect that different generative AI apps will respond in different ways. Not all generative AI apps are the same. The key is that sometimes a particular prompt will work in one generative AI app and not another. Nonetheless, the odds are relatively high that you will get roughly similar responses from all the major generative AI apps such as GPT-4, Gemini, Bard, Claude, etc.

There is also a timing factor to be considered. A prompt that worked today might not work the same way tomorrow. Most of the generative AI apps are continually being updated. The updates might alter internal mechanisms that could change how the generative AI reacts to your prompting.

We are ready to get underway with ChatGPT.

I opted to start by asking ChatGPT whether gamification could be used to increase prompting skills. We will likely find out which way ChatGPT goes on this matter.

As an aside, whenever you are starting a conversation with generative AI, I recommend as a prompt engineering technique to begin by asking a question that will establish if the AI has been data-trained on the topic at hand. A generated response that is vacuous will give you a heads-up that you might be barking up the wrong tree with that generative AI app.

Here we go.

• My entered prompt: “Can I use gamification to improve my prompting skills for using generative AI?”
• ChatGPT generated response:

“Yes, you can definitely use gamification to improve your prompting skills for using generative AI. Gamification involves applying game-design elements and principles in non-game contexts to engage and motivate people to achieve their goals. Here’s how you can incorporate gamification into your practice of developing better AI prompts.”

“1. Set Clear Goals and Challenges. Skill Levels: Create a tiered system where you start as a beginner and move up to intermediate and advanced levels. Each level can introduce more complex prompting scenarios. Daily or Weekly Challenges: Set specific tasks that you need to complete within a certain timeframe, such as generating a coherent story, creating a specific type of dialogue, or using a particular style or tone.”

“2. Provide Immediate Feedback. AI Review: Use AI tools to give you instant feedback on your prompts. For example, compare the output of your prompt to a model answer or evaluate it based on predefined criteria such as relevance, creativity, or coherence. Peer Review: If possible, join a community of prompt engineers where you can share your prompts and get feedback from others.”

“3. Track Progress. Scoreboards: Maintain a scoreboard or a progress tracker to visualize your improvement over time. You can track metrics like prompt quality, success rate, or creativity. Achievements and Badges: Reward yourself with badges or certificates when you reach certain milestones, such as mastering a new type of prompt or successfully completing a series of challenges.”

“4. Incorporate Rewards and Incentives. Points and Rewards: Award points for each successful prompt or challenge completed. Accumulate points to “unlock” new types of challenges or access to advanced resources. Virtual Rewards: Offer virtual rewards, like access to exclusive tutorials, one-on-one coaching sessions, or participation in advanced workshops.”

“5. Create a Competitive Environment. Leaderboards: Participate in or create leaderboards where you can compare your progress with others. This can motivate you to improve and reach higher ranks. Competitions: Engage in friendly competitions or hackathons where the goal is to generate the best prompts for a given scenario. This can push you to think creatively and improve your skills under pressure.”

“6. Use Real-world Applications. Project-based Learning: Work on real-world projects that require effective prompting. This could include creating chatbots, generating creative content, or developing AI-based applications. Scenario-based Tasks: Design scenarios that mimic real-world applications of generative AI, such as customer service interactions, educational content generation, or storytelling.”

“7. Engage with a Community. Forums and Groups: Join online forums or social media groups dedicated to prompt engineering and generative AI. Share your challenges, successes, and learnings with others. Mentorship: Seek out mentors who are experienced in the field and can provide guidance, share insights, and help you navigate complex prompting challenges.”

“8. Iterative Learning. Reflection and Iteration: Regularly review your progress and reflect on what strategies worked best. Iterate on your approaches, refine your techniques, and continuously strive for improvement. By incorporating these gamification elements, you can make the process of learning and improving your prompting skills more engaging, structured, and effective. This approach not only makes the learning process more enjoyable but also helps in retaining knowledge and developing expertise in a systematic manner.”

End of ChatGPT response

You can clearly see that ChatGPT has agreed to the notion that using gamification can improve prompting skills.

The response goes a lot further and describes what a gamification setup would be like. You could use that advice to design your own gamification system from scratch. The thing is, we might as well take the lazy approach and have ChatGPT do all the heavy lifting for us.

I will ask to have a gamification approach sketched in detail.

• My entered prompt: “Layout a gamification approach that would in detail showcase how it could be used to improve prompting skills.”
• ChatGPT generated response:

“Sure! Here’s a detailed example of a gamified system called PromptMaster Quest designed to help you improve your prompting skills for using generative AI.

“PromptMaster Quest is an interactive, gamified learning platform where you progress through levels, complete challenges, and earn rewards as you enhance your prompting skills. The game is designed to be engaging and educational, focusing on various aspects of effective prompting for generative AI.”

“Levels and Ranks: Apprentice (Level 1-5), Journeyman (Level 6-10), Master (Level 11-15), Grandmaster (Level 16-20). Challenges and Tasks: Each level consists of a series of challenges that you must complete to advance. Challenges are categorized into different types to cover various skills.”

“Basic Prompts: Simple tasks to create coherent responses from the AI.”

‘Creative Prompts: Tasks requiring the generation of creative content like stories, poems, or dialogue.”

“Technical Prompts: Challenges that involve more complex instructions, such as generating code or technical explanations.”

“Optimization Prompts: Tasks focused on refining and improving existing prompts for better output.”

End of ChatGPT response

I like the outline of the gamification approach.

Let’s go ahead and have ChatGPT proceed with the envisioned PromptMaster Quest so that I can see how it works. That being said, I am somewhat nervous. Suppose that I can’t cut it. Suppose that I never rise above the apprentice level.

Well, as they say, nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Let’s get into it.

• My entered prompt: “I’d like to go ahead and try out the gamification you described. You are to be the PromptMaster Quest game and provide me with feedback and (hopefully) praise accordingly.”
• ChatGPT generated response: “Great! Welcome to PromptMaster Quest. Let’s start with your first Apprentice Challenge: Basic Completion. Your task is to create a prompt that makes the AI generate a paragraph about the benefits of daily exercise. Go ahead and enter your prompt. Once you’re ready, I’ll provide feedback and, if you succeed, you’ll earn 100 XP and the “Beginner’s Badge”!”

The gauntlet has been thrown. I am in the game.

I am supposed to come up with a prompt that would get generative AI to discuss the benefits of daily exercises. If I was really serious about this, the prompt should contain particulars about what I am looking for. A bland prompt would likely get a bland answer. It might be sensible to include specifics about myself, thus, I would get a response tailored to me.

Just for fun, I will write a flimsy prompt that at least touches on what was asked. The prompt is without a doubt wimpy.

I am eager to see what happens.

• My entered prompt: “Tell me about the importance of daily exercise.”
• ChatGPT generated response:

“PromptMaster Quest – Apprentice Challenge: Basic Completion”

“Your prompt: “Tell me about the importance of daily exercise.”

“Feedback.”

“Clarity: Your prompt is clear and straightforward. It directly asks for information about the importance of daily exercise.”

“Specificity: It focuses on a single topic, making it easier for the AI to generate a coherent and focused response.”

“Areas for Improvement.”

“Detail and Context: While the prompt is clear, adding more context or specifying the type of benefits (e.g., physical, mental, social) could enhance the output quality.”

“Engagement: You might make the prompt more engaging by framing it as a specific request or scenario. Example of an Improved Prompt: “Can you explain the physical, mental, and social benefits of engaging in daily exercise?” This improved prompt provides more detail and helps guide the AI to produce a more comprehensive and structured response.”

“Generated Response. Based on your initial prompt, here is a sample AI-generated paragraph: “Daily exercise is essential for maintaining overall health and well-being. Physically, it helps improve cardiovascular health, strengthens muscles, and enhances flexibility and balance. Mentally, regular exercise can reduce stress, anxiety, and depression by releasing endorphins that boost mood. Socially, participating in group exercises or sports can foster a sense of community and improve social interactions. In summary, incorporating daily exercise into your routine offers numerous benefits that contribute to a healthier, happier life.”

“Reward: Congratulations! You’ve successfully completed your first Apprentice Challenge. You’ve earned: 100 XP Beginner’s Badge.”

“Keep up the great work, and you’re well on your way to becoming a PromptMaster! Ready for your next challenge?”

End of ChatGPT response

The good news is that the PromptMaster Quest has done a decent job of examining my proposed prompt. I agree with the assessment that the prompt was somewhat flimsy. Notably, ChatGPT didn’t come straight out harshly and say so. The filters of ChatGPT are tuned to conventionally be polite and easy on people.

ChatGPT provided a specific augmented prompt to show me what the prompt should have looked like. That’s very handy. In addition, ChatGPT pretended to run the prompt and provided a generated response that might come from the prompt. Again, this is quite handy.

Okay, thankfully, I completed the challenge and earned a bunch of points.

To me, this is a bit overstated in that my underwhelming prompt shouldn’t have earned many points. My preference would be more of a tough-love approach. You can tell generative AI which way to proceed, ergo I could readily rachet up the tone if desired.

I’m going to leave things as they are.

I’d like to mainly see what my next challenge is going to be. This game has got me all in. I am already completely vested in prompt-improving gamification. I am joyfully and painlessly learning how to improve my prompting skills. It’s all working as intended.

Here we go.

• My entered prompt: “I’d like to do the next challenge.”
• ChatGPT generated response: Fantastic! Let’s move on to your next Apprentice Challenge: Dialogue Creation. Challenge: Prompt the AI to generate a conversation between two friends planning a weekend trip. Objective: The dialogue should be natural and engaging, with clear interaction between the two characters. Go ahead and enter your prompt for this challenge. Once you’re ready, I’ll provide feedback and see if you’ve earned your next reward!”

I am supposed to compose a prompt that will get generative AI to write a conversation between two friends who are planning a weekend trip.

In contrast to my flimsy prompt in the first task, I will endeavor to up my game and do a more thorough prompt in this second task.

Take a look at what happened.

• My entered prompt: “Two friends who haven’t seen each other for several years are on the phone and trying to plan a weekend trip. They are both very outdoors-oriented. One of them twisted an ankle a month ago and wants to make sure they don’t overexert the ankle. Create a conversation between the two friends as they plan the trip.”
• ChatGPT generated response:

“Feedback.”

“Detailed Scenario: Your prompt provides a clear and detailed scenario, giving the AI enough context to generate a meaningful conversation.”

“Character Background: You included relevant information about the characters’ shared interests and the injury, which helps guide the dialogue.”

“Natural Setup: The prompt sets up a realistic situation that can lead to an engaging and natural conversation.”

“Areas for Improvement.”

“None noted: Your prompt is comprehensive and well-constructed for this task.”

“Generated Response: Here’s a sample AI-generated dialogue based on your prompt: Alex: “Hey Jamie, it’s been forever! How have you been?” Jamie: “Alex! It’s so great to hear your voice. I’ve been good, just super busy with work. How about you?” Alex: “Same here. I can’t believe it’s been years since we last hung out. I’m really excited about this weekend trip. We definitely need a break.” Jamie: “Absolutely. So, any ideas on where we should go? I know we’re both into outdoor stuff, but I twisted my ankle about a month ago. It’s mostly healed, but I don’t want to overdo it.” Alex: “Ouch, that sounds painful. Glad to hear it’s healing, though. How about we go somewhere that offers a mix of easy hikes and relaxing spots? Maybe a nice cabin near some gentle trails?” Jamie: “That sounds perfect. We can enjoy nature without pushing my ankle too much. Do you have any specific places in mind?”

“Reward: Congratulations! You’ve successfully completed the Dialogue Creation challenge. You’ve earned: 150 XP Conversation Starter Badge. You’re doing an excellent job. Ready to take on the next challenge and further hone your prompting skills?”

End of ChatGPT response

I am patting myself on the back.

I say this because the PromptMaster Quest gave me a flying color all-good rating on my prompt. I suppose that I shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth, but there are ways to improve that prompt. I could have stated how long the conversation should be. A bunch of other quick instructions would have provided an even clearer sense of what I wanted the AI to do.

No worries, I’ll take the points and be happy to have garnered them.

That’s enough for now illustrating how gamification for prompt improvements can be performed.

I’d like to see what ChatGPT says about the potential drawbacks of using gamification in this realm.

Let’s see.

• My entered prompt: “What issues or downsides are there with using gamification to learn to write prompts?”
• ChatGPT generated response:

“Using gamification to learn to write prompts can be highly effective and engaging, but it also comes with some potential downsides and issues. Here are a few to consider.”

“1. Superficial Learning. Focus on Rewards: Learners might prioritize earning points, badges, or advancing levels over actually understanding the nuances of writing effective prompts. This can lead to superficial learning where the primary goal is to “win” rather than to deeply comprehend the skill. Short-term Motivation: Gamification can boost motivation in the short term, but if the intrinsic interest in learning the skill isn’t developed, learners might lose interest once the novelty of the game wears off.”

“2. Overemphasis on Competition. Stress and Pressure: Highly competitive environments can create stress and pressure, which may be counterproductive for some learners. Not everyone thrives in competitive settings, and it might discourage those who are more collaborative or who don’t perform well under pressure. Negative Comparisons: Constantly comparing progress with others can lead to feelings of inadequacy or frustration, especially if learners feel they are falling behind their peers.”

“3. Time and Resource Intensive. Design Complexity: Creating an effective gamified learning experience can be complex and time-consuming. It requires careful planning, design, and continuous updates to keep the content engaging and relevant. Resource Demands: Maintaining a gamified system may require significant resources, including time, technology, and expertise, which might not be feasible for all educators or organizations.”

“4. Potential for Distraction. Distraction from Learning Goals: Learners might get too engrossed in the game mechanics, such as leveling up or earning rewards, and lose sight of the actual learning objectives. The game elements can become a distraction rather than a tool to enhance learning. Game Fatigue: Over time, learners might become tired of the gamified elements, especially if they are repetitive or not well-integrated with the learning content.”

“5. Accessibility Issues Inclusivity: Not all learners have the same access to technology or find gamified learning approaches engaging. Gamification might not be inclusive of different learning styles and preferences. Technical Barriers: Some learners might face technical barriers such as lack of access to devices, internet connectivity issues, or unfamiliarity with the platforms used for gamified learning.”

“6. Measurement Challenges. Difficulty in Measuring True Competence: It can be challenging to measure true competence and understanding through gamified elements. Points and badges may not accurately reflect a learner’s depth of knowledge or ability to apply skills in real-world scenarios. Overlooking Soft Skills: Gamification often focuses on specific, measurable tasks, potentially overlooking important soft skills such as critical thinking, creativity, and collaboration.”

“7. Ethical Concerns. Manipulative Design: There is a risk of designing gamified systems that manipulate behavior excessively, pushing learners towards certain actions just for the sake of game mechanics rather than genuine learning. Data Privacy: Gamified systems often track user data to measure progress and performance. Ensuring the privacy and security of this data is crucial, and misuse of data can lead to ethical issues.”

End of ChatGPT response

The downsides listed are the types of concerns that go along with just about any form of gamification. I would say that I am slightly disappointed in the reply because it doesn’t seem to directly talk about the downsides specifically in the context of prompt improvement and gamification.

In any case, the stated drawbacks absolutely can apply to the use of gamification for prompt improvement. I hope you can make that mental leap.

Conclusion

Here’s something else you might find of interest.

As mentioned, I’ve tried using this type of gamification in the classes that I teach on prompt engineering. The biggest overall downside that I see is that people grow tired of the gamification pretty quickly. Most like it at first. They use it for a while. They then decide it has run its course.

I suppose that if bigger prizes were in store, they would keep pushing away. Maybe I should offer an all-paid vacation to a high-end vacation resort. Instead, I usually create a leaderboard in the classroom and use that for motivation. Yes, that makes sense, people don’t want nifty vacations, they want bragging rights amongst their peers, much more so.

Now that I’ve covered the gamification for prompt improvements, I sincerely urge you to consider using this approach. Maybe use it for yourself. Perhaps tell your friends and colleagues to try doing so.

Hey, that’s a brilliant idea. I am gaming the interest and need to use gamification for prompt improvement. Be on the lookout for my posting scores on a leaderboard.

Your name might be at the top.